“Oh, how frightened I am of my room! What dreams! What dreams!”
“Perhaps you would like me to stay with you?” said Romashov.
“No, no; that’s not necessary. But get me, please, some bromide and a little—vodka. I have no money.”
Romashov sat by him till eleven. Nasanski’s fits of ague gradually subsided. Suddenly he opened his great eyes gleaming with fever, and uttered with some difficulty, but in a determined, abrupt tone:
“Go, now—good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” replied Romashov sadly. He wanted to say, “Good-bye, my teacher,” but was ashamed of the phrase, and he merely added with an attempt at joking:
“Why did you merely say ‘good-bye’? Why not say do svidánia?”[25]
Nasanski burst into a weird, senseless laugh.
“Why not do svishvezia?”[26] he screamed in a wild, mad voice.